


The Lady Who Flew

by Sookiestark



Series: Fantastic, Frivolous, and Fragile AU's [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ashara Lives, Ashara is a bad ass, Demons, F/M, Feminist Themes, Folklore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-07 01:12:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18227918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sookiestark/pseuds/Sookiestark
Summary: A version of the Ashara story where she lives.





	The Lady Who Flew

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a combination of me writing a story where Ashara gets to live and she is pretty bad ass. I am sick of her being sad. I want her to be angry and powerful. 
> 
> Also, I love the story of Melusine, the demon ancestor of Eleanor of Aquitaine. 
> 
> I have wanted to finish this story for a long time. I hope you enjoy it

Ashara was sick of grief and apologies She was sick of politics and manners. She was sick of Starfall. She was sick of mourning, war, and death.

Ashara knew she was tired of walking around Starfall like she was a ruined girl. She was sick of looking at the faces of the household staff and seeing the sadness in their eyes, the disappointment, the grief. She was sick of wearing black for mourning. 

Mostly, she was sick of waiting. Ashara wasn’t sure what she was waiting for but it felt like waiting. Perhaps, her eldest brother the Lord of Starfall would find someone for her to marry. Then the waiting would stop.

Sometimes as she would lay in her bed, she would think about her husband, who he might be. Knowing her brother and that her prospects were less after Ayanna was born, she would be wed to an older man, a kind man, a learned one. Someone who needed sons. Perhaps, he had a bunch of daughters. Perhaps, he had his own grief and a column of dead brides unable to give him an heir. She could see his dark hair greying at the temples, his olive skin creased at his eyes and neck. Perhaps a thickness around his waist. Her husband would love her though. She was certain that her brother, Asher, would not settle for less for her. Even if she was just a ruined girl. 

Ahara would imagine him, this imaginary man of her future, kissing her and slowly it would change to a skinny dark-haired boy, awkward and shy, serious and intense. Ned, Lord Stark’s second son, stealing kisses at every corner in Harrenhal. No matter how many times they kissed, she always thought the same that her chest would burst from the feelings he stirred in her.

Princess Elia Targaryen had teased her for settling for a second son like Eddard Stark, inexperienced, awkward, skinny. Elia had whispered, “At least, Brandon looks like he knows how to kiss and he has a man’s body. Perhaps, he has the skill to use it.”

But Ashara had wanted something different and Brandon Stark looked like more of the same. Even then, Ashara was sick of all of it. And Ned Stark looked like nothing she had never seen before. He was a world away from foolish games and Court politics.. 

Now, Ashara wanted the past back, the silly Court games, the fake bravery the men would have as they attempted to seduce her, the tourneys, the gowns, Princess Elia’s laugh. She wanted her brother, Ser Arthur, to tease her threatening to hurt any man who touched her. More than anything, she wanted to see Arthur in the yard making the air sing while he practiced with Dawn.

Now, the Sword of Morning hung over the hearth in the Great Hall. Asher, her older brother and the Lord of Starfall had hung it there when Ned Stark returned it. Ned was now no second son but Lord of Winterfell. How much had happened in a year?

 

In her solar, Ned had come to her. The shame and guilt on his face turning his skin pale and it reminded her of when he woke naked beside her in her room at Harrenhal. He had apologized and she had giggled at him. There was moon tea. There was time to get to know each other and she wanted to learn every secret Eddard Stark had. He had been awkward but he had smiled and gathered her in his arms.

”I will marry you,” Ned had promised. 

She had laughed and told him to slow down, “First, tell me your secrets. Then we will talk about the future.” 

He had laid there and told her about his dreams. They were small things, to help his brother, to help Jon Arryn, his foster father, to marry a woman who loved him. She thought they were lovely like the grey and blue pearls they found in the sea by the shore of the Torrentine. She had thought to string them like pearls and wear them all the days of her life. Ashara had teased him because he had no secrets worth sharing. However, times had changed and when Ned had left Starfall, it appeared the young Lord of Winterfell had a very dangerous secret accompanying him back to Winterfell in swaddling clothes.

When they had left Harrenhal, Ned had promised to write. But the War had come quickly. Elia had sent her home before it was too dangerous. Ashara had thought to tell Elia how the moon tea had not worked but there was no time, no privacy. She had left her dearest friend to face her terrible end, all alone. Ashara would never forgive Rhaegar for Elia’s death.

Something about seeing Ned in her solar, after all the death and sorrow, with his hands together and his eyes downcast had been too much. Ashara had cried in her hands to see him in the sunlight, finally her with her. Except he had come to return Dawn not for her at all. Awkwardly and stiffly, he had gathered her in his arms as she had wept. Even as she wept in his arms, Ashara had hated herself for the tears that made her appear weak and feminine. Even more, she had hated herself because she still loved the feel of his arms around her. She had wondered if she had kissed him would he betray his bride, the one he had married for Hoster Tully’s support in a rebellion against the rightful King. 

Ashara had told him of the girl she had given birth three moons before. The baby had been perfect with dark hair and grey eyes. Ayanna had been perfect except the cord had been wrapped around her neck. When she had finally slipped through to the world, Ayanna was blue. Wylla, the wet nurse, had grabbed rubbing her fiercely with a blanket and breathed in her tiny mouth. 

But nothing would bring her back. Ayanna Sand was dead. Asher had buried her by the river, facing toward the North. 

 

Of course, Ned had mumbled apologies for everything; apologies for taking her maidenhead, for leaving her alone, for not being able to marry her, for killing her brother. There were so many apologies. But his words only made the pain hurt worse. 

“Ashara, I am so sorry,” he had said and he had wiped her tears with his thumbs. Ned looked in her eyes and for a heartbeat, she had thought he would kiss her. Pulling back, Ned had gently let her go. “I am sorry. I can’t. I am married.”

She had watched him leave after speaking with Asher, taking Wylla and the tiny infant, Jon, with him.

 

She was sick of getting sympathy, of listening to apologies, of walking past her daughter’s grave. She was sick of waiting on men, sick of their rules, sick of their wars. Ashara would make her own rules. 

Ashara is angry as she climbs the tallest tower at Starfall. She cannot see Ned Stark's small company going farther north in the distance. They are too far now. She wonders if she will see them. She can see the grave of her baby. She can hear her mother weeping over Arthur's sword. His bones were left behind in the mountains.

 

As she stands there in the window of the tower, Ashara realizes that she is furious. It is no longer apathy. It is white, hot rage, coursing beneath her skin. Since she was a girl, her mother warned her about her temper. Mother would remind her to be calm, to swallow her pride, and push down her anger. Her mother would jokingly “It will bring out the devil in you.”

The was a very old story of one of the Kings of the Torrentine who had married a woman, a demon princess. In the Age of Legends, there had been a horde of angry demons living in the mountains. The King had sent his oldest son who was a skilled warrior and very handsome. After a moon’s turn, the boy came back with a beautiful wife and half his men and horses. The son told his father that she was the daughter of the demon king and his wife. The boy said he had made an alliance and the demons would no longer be a threat. True to his words, all the demon attacks disappeared. In fact, there was no trace of them at all. 

The king worried about his son and pleaded with him to put the girl aside but the boy would not. Some said the beautiful demon princess had him under a spell. Some said the boy had fallen in love with her which is its own magic spell. 

No matter how the king roared, begged, or pleaded, the prince would not listen. The strange princess gave the prince many sons but only one daughter. The sons were brave, strong, and true. Each one was a handsome and skilled warrior. Time passed and the old king died and the prince became king and his strange demon wife became the queen.

No one knows exactly what the King did to anger his beautiful faithful demon wife. Some say he thought to put her aside. Some say the magic enchantment wore off. Some say he saw her true visage in the bathtub, something she had made him swear never to do. Whatever the reason, the queen grew angry. In her anger, her true demon form came out. At the top of Starfall, the queen and her daughter opened their demon wings that had always been under the surface of their skin. In one moment, they stepped off the tower and flew off to the Red Mountains where the demons lived, shrieking in rage. No one ever saw them again.

It was a threat to Ashara when she was young, that she would get so angry she would sprout monster wings and fly away to live where monsters live. It was frightening.

Now, it sounds like freedom. 

The sky is clear. The sun is warm against her skin. Winter is finished. Spring is finally here. Ashara laughs into the sky. It is an unnatural sound full of power and rage. She unbraids her hair and slips out of her dress. She no longer has to be pious or proper, demure or flirtatious, motherly or maidenly. Now, Ashara can be herself her true self. Now, there is no one to keep her here; Ayanna, Ned, Arthur, Elia. They are all gone. 

But the mountains are calling her...

 

Ashara unfolds her wings. They are stiff from being held so tightly against under her skin for her whole life, bound tightly against her bones. 

She ruffles them once, then twice. They still work after a lifetime of disuse. It is in her nature to fly and she will soar. Ashara steps off the ledge and her beautiful violet, lavender-edged wings take flight. Ashara heads toward the mountains. In the sunlight, she is like a bird of legends, beautiful and free.


End file.
